I am Still Dreaming of a White Christmas...

Hola Everybody! 

This week was crazy. First things first: How Argentina celebrates Christmas is COMPLETELY different than the United States! Christmas Eve is called La Noche Buena. Everyone has an asado (roast) for this. But they start at like 10 PM. Then they hang out with friends and family and then at midnight everyone starts setting off fireworks...(we didn´t get a lot of sleep that night) and while all the kids are out watching fireworks that´s when Santa comes and then all the kids open their presents and everyone is awake until like 3 AM, it´s so weird. But everyone asks us if Christmas in the United States is how it is in the movies...yupp. And they always say Que Lindo (how cool) but then they keep celebrating Christmas like it´s New Years, it makes me sad because Christmas is so much more than a party...but we spent both days with the Loza family. They really are the best! 

Anyway. My new companion! We are exactly the same and completely different. We have been butting heads a lot but I think that is to be expected...haha. But really it´s all so good here. We are working so hard! And it´s so HOT! We had a ton of lessons this last week especially for how much we were inside because of Christmas and La Noche Buena. Oh and my FOOT SURGERY yupp you read that right. So long story short, my toe was hurting really bad the day after Christmas and I have a cut on it and I wanted a new Band-Aid so we went to a members house to get a Band Aid...well they took my shoe off and my toe was super infected...yummy I know. So they started talking about cutting things and I couldn´t understand any of it and my companion was just laughing, great. They took me to a clinic (so scary) and the lady is like yeah it´s infected and they need to cut part of my toenail off...but she´s only a nurse so she can´t use anesthetics...nope. I´m not letting anyone try to chop off part of my toe with out that.

So Saturday I went to the hospital and they chopped off part of my toenail! I couldn´t walk for two days so we´ve just been sitting in our house. I sent a picture of our clock that tells you the temperature too...it was 8 PM and it was 88 degrees.  We were melting. Oh and the picture in the hospital...they were drinking Mate while they were working on my toe! WHAT NO! It was like a scary movie. But I’m all fine now. I’m walking, well trying. It still hurts but the work has got to go on!

This week was a bummer we had to drop some people just because they weren´t progressing. But we also found some pretty solid new investigators too! We haven´t been able to visit them a whole lot yet because they live pretty far, but we have appointments with them tonight!

I never really realized how awesome our ward is! Everyone is always so willing to help out. I love it. This year has been super successful for our ward and I know it is because of the help of all the members. It´s not just like there is one family that is helping with everything, everyone wants to help with everything. There is such a great bond between all the families. I love it. There are a few families in our ward that have to move in January and they are all trying their absolute best to stay in Barrio 2.

I love being a missionary. I never believed that it could be possible to love a place like this. Yes the siesta is frustrating but it doesn´t matter. There are always people to find and teach and share our message with. I never realized how hard it would be to be a missionary. Up at 6:30 every single day and walking miles and miles in weather that who knows how hot it really is…but we can do it everyday. Literally every night when I go to bed all I can think is how amazed I am that we´re still alive. The only way any of this is possible is because of Heavenly Father. He really does watch out for every single one of his missionaries. We are blessed everyday with the ability to work one day more. My testimony has grown so much more in these last 10 weeks than I ever thought was possible.

I love Argentina!!!! I hope everyone had an amazing Christmas!! And that you will all have a Happy New Year!

Be safe!!!!

Always,

Hermana Barker

xoxo